May 22, 2021 – Anya Taylor-Joy / Lil Nas X (S46 E20)

by Anthony, Carson, and Matt

Matt: Hey all! So, this was an episode that a handful of us here at the site wanted to cover, and we decided that the best way to do that would be to try out another joint review! Carson, Anthony and I have divided the episode up in terms of the segments that we most wanted to cover (or otherwise were forced to cover because nobody else wanted them), and we tackled those assigned segments as we usually would in our normal reviews… but every sketch also features shorter, alternate takes from the other two writers! It’s like a 3-for-1 deal! We’re treating y’all better than you deserve.

This was a massively fun review to write, so without further ado: Carson, take it away!

WHAT I REMEMBER ABOUT LAST YEAR (Carson)
castmembers, CSR, Leo Yoshimura [real] give recollections of SNL’s season

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— Carson: After spending the first half of the season doubling down on all the worst traits of Trump era cold opens—celebrity cameos, exorbitant runtimes, grab bags of one-liners with no conceptual throughline—SNL spent the rest of the season trying to give their show openers a jolt of energy with new approaches. The cameos cooled down, the political bent became less direct and the runtimes… well, whatever. The results felt fresher, but were really no better. There were plenty of admirable attempts at a new approach to cold opens, but nothing that felt effective or sustainable (for Season 47, SNL seemed to return to the more tried-and-true formula of the late-90s and early-00s, to generally positive effect). This final cold open—a “Year In Review” of sorts—feels like a concession that things haven’t been fully clicking. Honestly, it’s probably for the best. I have no interest in returning to the Trumpwin well OR another of those lame Britney Spears sketches.
— The cast’s most senior cohort—Aidy, Kate, Cecily and Kenan—open the sketch at home base. During the rapturous opening applause, many of them appear to be tearing up. Which is honestly totally understandable because this is obviously their last show, right? RIGHT???
— “It was actually a pretty fun year for me…” Kenan, holding it down for those of us who didn’t really feel crushed by the world during the first year of COVID.
— Very interesting pajama top that Bowen is wearing.
— Charming, if not quite hilarious, reflections on the first COVID year, particularly Aidy’s early misconception that being able to hold your breath was proof of not having COVID.
— This is doing a nice job of highlighting the early absurdities of working within pandemic restrictions (like Chris Redd locking eyes with Adele mid-nasal swab) and how a half-crowd of masked and exhausted first responders was a less than ideal comedy audience. Honestly, some shows, while quite funny, had Malcom McDowell/Captain Beefheart levels of audience energy. 
— Fun cameo from Leo Yoshimura. He looks great, by the way.
— The season “highlights” bit was predictable, but still very funny, though I wonder if it would have been funnier if they didn’t have Cecily point out the joke.
— “These were unusual circumstances to do comedy under. Was every sketch perfect? Yeah, pretty much. We crushed it!” Great delivery from Kyle.
— Alex, Mikey, Beck and Kenan pointing out the season lowlights (Morgan Wallen, the Mike Pence fly sketch) is a more impressively self-aware piece.
— Fun cameo from Chris Rock! The Will Smith slap officially memory-wiped everything I knew about Chris Rock from before that moment. Was he on SNL or something?
—  Here comes the sincere part where everyone gets all weepy. I’d find it more affecting if I didn’t feel so inured to SNL’s new penchant for solemn weepiness.
— I always thought that comparing Aidy and Lauren in how they look was kind of a shitty thing to do, but then again, look at the screencap of them saying “Live From New York…” It’s honestly so striking and I’m guessing that Aidy’s return is a big reason why Lauren wasn’t brought back. Have any two cast members ever looked so similar while being on the show at the same time? Spade and Carvey?
— All in all, it was a slightly hokey cold open, but the energy was sweet, the jokes landed and we largely got to avoid all the aggravating trappings of the preceding season’s cold opens. That puts me in a good mood at least.
— Anthony: The first of two segments tonight that definitely play a little differently now that we know Beck and Lauren are the only two people in the cast leaving this summer (this is especially true for the part mocking the newbies lack of screen time). It is what it is, I mean clearly it’s time for the majority of this crew to pack it up, but I get not wanting to leave the place that loves you so much you get applause breaks for telling mildly amusing anecdotes, as happens to Aidy here when she does the bit about holding her breath. Still, a fun open—a lot of the self-aware digs hit and for once this season it sets a great energy for the night ahead. 
— Also, random note, but why are some of the cast members fake laughing along here like talk show hosts at some of these lines? They know we know they’ve heard them before, right?
— Matt: I’m a little higher on this cold open than Carson, though he speaks of it very well. In my opinion, this was just about the most perfect way to conclude a season of exhausting cold opens that I could possibly imagine, and for once, instead of just autopiloting its way through ten minutes of applause, SNL is shooting for the heart. There are some things that hit a bit unfortunately with the hindsight of next season—namely the firing of poor Lauren, who was most certainly dealt the worst hand here, and the lack of cast turnover (something that mars this episode somewhat)—but this was a thoughtful, funny, and ultimately touching way to recap one of the craziest and messiest seasons that the show’s ever had. 
STARS: ****

MONOLOGUE (Carson)
The Queen’s Gambit prepared host for the chessboard that is SNL

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— Carson: Joy is British?? Well, whattya know?
— This is the first show of the season with a full crowd. You could actually tell in the cold open. The energy is a little stronger tonight.
— Oh, Joy is a Miami-born Argentenian Brit. That’s a fun grab bag.
— Joy is being tasked with getting the regular supply of ho-hum monologue jokes over with the crowd. She’s doing fine and the audience is big enough that everything is getting a bit more than it deserves. That said, the opening chess move joke where Joy does her Queen’s Gambit pose was kind of fun.
— Ok, they’re actually doing something more with the Queen’s Gambit references by having Joy hallucinate a chess board of cue cards with the cast all as chess pieces. It would have been fun if they did more with the visual, but as it stands, it’s probably one of the more ambitious pieces in a monologue the show has done in a decade.
— Joy does the standard “We have a great show” spiel in her native Spanish, which is a nice enough touch, though as a white-passing Spanish speaking Brit, all the cultural ambiguity is enough to make your head spin.
— The chess board thing was a great touch and maybe hinted at a far more fascinating monologue that could have been, but alas this is a 2021 SNL monologue we’re talking about.
— Anthony: While this didn’t reinvent the wheel it did a good job setting up Joy as a charismatic and engaging host, and the SNL chess board visual was pretty fun and inventive. 
— Matt: Not the greatest monologue, but solid for what it is. I love the hot crowd, and I like the decision to pan along the balcony seats and showcase the full studio—there’s a great shot of a guy standing up and flailing around like crazy that always cracks me up. The audience also gives Anya a standing ovation up top, which feels rare to see, especially for a first-time host; you can tell everyone is really pumped to be there, and that energy gives this episode a wonderful spark.
— The nerd in me loves that the chessboard is composed of cue cards from sketches across the past two episodes, including some that were cut after dress and some that have lines that didn’t make it into the live show. Notably, there are several from “Sending Drinks,” cut from both of the last two episodes, and this week’s “NYU Guest Panel” sketch in the mix.
STARS: ***

HOLLYWOOD SQUARES (Carson)
nearly all celebrities in 1998 episode are problematic

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— Carson: The cut to the 1998 Hollywood celebrities reveals the joke pretty quickly with Kenan’s Bill Cosby taking up the middle square. But I do notice that the top right square has Apu from The Simpsons. Lauren is also slotted up top in a non-speaking role as Roseanne. Same for Andrew as Kevin Spacey.
— While the reveal is a little predictable, it’s ultimately satisfying. This is a good premise for a sketch, even if I wonder if this would have hit even harder in, say, 2017. I guess it has a bit of a 2021 vibe with the retroactive erasure of potentially offensive content (see the striking of streaming 30 Rock and Community episodes that featured satirical use of blackface), but I feel like this could have felt really edgy just a couple years earlier.
— That all said, the cutaways to the Steve Higgins narration are incredibly effective.
—  Aidy: “One thing’s for sure, I trust Bill Cosby!”
— Funny inclusion of Jeff Dunham. The idea that he would name a talking cornbread “De’Shawn” is pretty hilarious. With the risk of Chris explaining the joke like Mikey Day, his portion where he calls out Dunham actually works pretty well.
— I don’t think things are escalating in any particular way, but the sketch is doing a good job of hitting the same beat in different ways.
— A zippy little piece that has some light fun playing with a hot topic. Was it timely? Eh, I’m not sure about that, but it was well-structured and high energy. 
— Anthony: Not the most original piece the show’s ever done (things have changed culturally in the past few years? Ya don’t say) but there’s a tightness to the writing here I appreciate. This doesn’t get bogged down in extraneous details or random one-liners like a lot of modern sketches can, it’s just a quick hit of laughs connected to its premise. Some of it feels like we’re getting into easy shock laughs, but the piece mostly does what it’s supposed to and continues the strong energy the night has going so far.
— Matt: Not the best sketch, but a very well-written one and a great way to start the night off. I agree with Carson that it might’ve hit harder more at the start of the #MeToo movement, but it’s still delightfully dark with its meta humor in 2021. I might criticize the anachronistic qualities of some of the celebrities, as people like Jared Fogle and Jeff Dunham were nobodies at the time, but it’s a minor complaint. I’m also surprised to see SNL taking shots at Dunham, a comedian who no doubt still works with a lot of racist shit but who there’s never been a concentrated effort to call out.
— It’s odd that Chris calls on Kevin Spacey, who is portrayed in full make-up by Andrew in the shot of the full board at the start of the sketch, but he never gets a specific close-up. I wonder if his part (and Lauren’s) were trimmed after dress.
— This sketch was previously cut from the Keegan-Michael-Key episode. In a podcast with Mike Birbiglia, he joked that it came down between this and “The Muppet Show,” and I think the right call was made there.
STARS: ****

PICTURE WITH DAD (Matt)
pre-prom photo causes accidental shotgun blast

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— Matt: Ah, hell yes, a Dismukes classic! 
— A fantastic disruption to the sweet tone of this pretape with Beck’s dad walking into Andrew and Heidi’s prom picture with a shotgun, and then an even more fantastic disruption with Beck proceeding to accidentally blast his dick off.
— I love the brief, blunt exchange between Alex and Anya’s doctors about how Beck was another case of someone blowing his dick off while holding a gun in a prom picture.
— I think that it’s very hard to write a sketch where the game is how much the game is repeatedly changing, and this sketch really flows from one idea to the next—first it’s about how Beck blew his dick off, then it’s about how much Andrew and Heidi have been having sex, and then it’s about the fact that they’re gonna have sex after prom even though Beck doesn’t want them to—but there’s something about the rapid pacing of this sketch, the way that the dialogue and the characterizations that are written, that keeps it perfectly afloat. That’s how fucking good Andrew is as a writer, and you can tell that the snappiness in his approach is bred from a far more youthful place than most of SNL’s other staffers. The fact that this whole sketch clocks in at a mere three minutes, too, and has so much to it… that’s definitely something SNL could afford to learn from with how long its sketches tend to run.
— There’s also a fantastically rhythmic quality to the dialogue, between Beck’s desperation and the very chaste responses of those around him, that really unifies all of the different games going on.
— Beck: “Lizzie, I’m sorry I ruined your prom by blowing my dick off with my gun… and Laura, I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you, and so I blew my little dick off with my big ‘ol gun.”
— The drawn-out portion with Andrew politely informing Beck that they won’t have sex on his request, but that they totally will, is a particular highlight. 
— I just wanted to say here how goddamn happy I am that Andrew was able to really blossom in the back-half of this season and find a niche, which he continued to maintain into S47. (As for S48… hopefully he’ll get more on than he has been as it progresses.) He’s a newbie with the sort of assured, singular voice that ensures him a long future with the show, and I can’t wait to talk about the sort of nonsense that he’ll continue to brew in the years to come.
— Anthony: One of my favorite pieces of this whole era. When I watched live, I got ahead of the initial reveal but assumed it was going to happen at the very end of the sketch after minutes of arguing—for the sketch to jump straight into it and have Beck immediately shoot himself totally took me by surprise and gave me possibly my hardest laugh of the season. Matt does a great job above expressing just why this piece works so well, so I don’t have a ton more to say, but this absolutely one for the highlight reel.
— Also nice to see Beck, on his final night, get such a great role in a piece written by Andrew, one of the future stars of the show. A nice sort of torch passing moment. 
— Carson: An immediate favorite. I showed this one to a ton of people after it aired in a very “Look, SNL is still a little bit funny” way. I agree with Matt that the brilliance is in the sheer efficiency of its execution. There are three or four key beats here that a regular SNL sketch would commit five minutes to alone. And while I think Andrew’s Frasier ad-lib was what fully won me over on him, it was his rapid fire back-and-forth with Beck that confirmed my belief that he belonged on the show. Premise-wise, it’s mostly pretty stupid, but in terms of pure execution, it’s really seamless.
— It also needs to be mentioned that in all the high energy and varying comic beats, this is just a really sharp takedown of fragile male egos and patriarchal bullshit. Beck, of course, is brilliant in this role, but so often SNL needs to let the audience in on the satirical POV (just imagine this sketch having Mikey Day standing there declaring “boy, that dad really seems to be compensating for something!”). Here, the comedy zooms by at breakneck speed, allowing the audience to actually engage with the comedy without being told what to think. Classic show, don’t tell—a hallmark of a great sketch.    
STARS: *****

MAKING MAN (Carson)
in heaven, designers of man receive criticism from designers of woman

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— Carson: The design of human man feels like a concept with a lot of room for play.
—  Mikey: “Where did you guys land on hair for the human man?” Beck: “Uh, we’re thinking about putting it pretty much everywhere.”
— The one huge toe gag comes with a pretty funny visual.
— I like Melissa being the one person on the female design team who is into the male design. I could do without Aidy having to put her in her place. It doesn’t do much for me comedically and it’s triggering my Melissa Defense Mechanism. 
— I love how smug and proud the guys are about their absurd design.
— Kenan being the nipple expert, pretentiously explaining how the male torso is meant to give the illusion of a giant face, is perfect. 
— Mikey: “As you can see, the Dangler uses three different colors of skin.”
— Great bit about “the Dangler” being basically impervious to pain while the “wrinkle pouch” can make the man fall over and vomit by merely being flicked. Some very base, but very funny observations being executed here.
— The guys’ explanation of blue balls is brilliant.
— I’m realizing that Aidy was basically pointless in this scene.
— Kyle does a brilliant turn as a socially awkward Jesus, but it’s ultimately kind of weird non-sequitur addition. The sketch kind of peters (also known as simons) out as a result.
— A very silly, but pretty evergreen concept here. This feels like it could have played as well in 1990 or 1975 or even as a mid-60s Second City piece with Alan Arkin as it does in 2021. This could have played in any season without a single revision. That’s a compliment. The sketch moved along with efficiency and despite my minor quibbles (Aidy’s presence, the non-ending), I’m always delighted to see something that feels classic, even if it’s not an actual classic. In a strong episode like this, it’s breezy fun pieces like this that form an effective connective tissue.
— Anthony: Another piece tonight that isn’t exactly covering new ground but is just written tightly enough and with enough fun details that it breathes life back into the piece. Some strong ensemble work too, giving everyone some chances to shine, with Melissa and Kyle at the end especially popping. It’s nice that so far this finale has made a concerted effort to showcase the whole cast, rather than just the cast members we assumed may have been leaving at the time.
— Mikey once again donning that weird ass angel wig from the Chad sketch from Season 44’s Sandler episode that looks like something you’d see on a baby Dee Snyder. 
— Matt: Probably my pick for most underrated sketch of the night. It’s not anything too elaborate, but it’s just a cavalcade of observational, writerly goodness, which I’ll always be a huge fan of. While I do agree with Carson that this is a sketch with a certain timelessness that means it could play well in any era, it’s also a piece that I think really emphasizes the strength and utility that every cast member plays. This is, for instance, one of my favorite uses of Mikey as an over-explainer and Melissa as her stock “person who is really into the weird thing” archetype; Kenan and Chris also do great work here in their supporting roles. Kyle feels like a missing link and he hurts the sketch a bit with the non-ending, but he’s fun enough as Jesus and it doesn’t ultimately detract.
— The “man” in this sketch clearly uses a cast of Beck’s face. It was also used earlier this season in the “Headless Horseman” sketch from Mulaney’s episode.
— This is also the final sketch co-written by Dan Licata (alongside Streeter Seidell), who leaves after this season. Even though he’s contributed to a rather odd assortment of sketches, I’ve always really liked him and it was sad to see him leave after only two seasons; some of his work, like this piece and “Melissa Seals the Deal” from the At Home episodes (as well as his writing for the great Joe Pera Talks with You), proved he could wield a strong and singular perspective as a writer, something which feels increasingly valuable in this era’s current writer’s room.
STARS: ****

IT’S PRIDE AGAIN (Anthony)
gay celebrants experience joys & frustrations

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— Anthony: Hey, a silly sketch about partying. This should be fun to talk about! I mean, my God, what in this goofy little sketch could possibly cause me to have to go on a rant about exhausting discourse?
— The melody on this is lifted from Charli XCX’s “Girl’s Night Out”, though I hear some “Holiday” in there as well.
— Love everyone’s outfits! Punkie’s jacket especially is super dope (just putting as much light as I can out there before I have to have words with some people).
— It’s always remarkable to finally see pieces like this on the show. The show has never had the best history with the LGBTQ community (ask Terry Sweeney), with an especially rough patch that stretches from the Bad Boys era to the Meyers years, where “gay” could be the entire punchline for a sketch (just remember such brilliant sketches as ‘what if a Civil War unit was super gay?’ or ‘what if Frankenstein’s monster was super gay?’). Even in 2012, when Kate was hired, while it was a big moment, it was understood that if she was going to be bringing any energy from her previous show, the Big Gay Sketch Show, it was going to be more in husky, chuckle inducing portrayals of stereotypical lesbians than anything like in this sketch (all of that’s before we get into the whole can of worms that is James Anderson). So sketches like this, directly pitched at queer audiences, written by queer writers and starring queer cast members, are still a pretty special thing when we get them. 
— I believe Anya herself is straight, which may be why she sings the part about allies (though she’s playing a lesbian in this sketch, dating Kate). 
— Bowen: “I don’t wanna be funny, I wanna be hot!”
— I wanted more specifics in Kate and Anya’s part, either on what they’re fighting about, or what’s served at a “gay brunch”. They could have done better than “eggs”. 
— Punkie not knowing who to hit on because all the straight girls having started “dressing lesbian” is the type of specific I was looking for in Kate’s bit.
— We get a cameo from Celeste Yim, one of the writers of this piece (along with Bowen and Sudi Green). They’re the one Kate asks “who let in all these straights?” (tenth screencap above)
— Fun and accurate bit with the friends getting into an exhaustive, regurgitative debate about whether or not to eat Chick-fil-A (“you Georgia Bank bitch!”)
— Lil Nas shows up to huge applause from the studio audience. I’ll bring it up in a sec when he comes on to perform, but his being here is another moment that feels significant. His verse is fine, and features some blurred out butt holes, so who can really complain?
— Funny bit mocking rainbow capitalism with the gang realizing they’re on a Deutsche Bank float.
— Hewwkay. So when this came out, there was a small but vocal contingent on Twitter (hellsite FTW yet again) that was Not. Fucking. Having. this sketch. Their beef essentially is that, instead of this being a piece celebrating Pride and all the good it stands for, SNL deigned to air a piece mocking Pride and portraying queers as messy drunks. Now when things got potentially messy in the Kaluuya episode I kept my mouth shut, but since I feel a little more qualified on this lemme just say: muh babies, touch grass. This is a line that’s been used to defend plenty a sketch I hate, but: you know this is a comedy show, right? What, you wanted them to come out and just say what pride means to them personally, maybe look at the camera as one tear slowly rolls down their cheek? This is a dumb song on a sketch show, not everything needs to be fucking Carol (oh what, they don’t like Carol now? Cool). 
— And all that’s before you get to the disgusting “ironic” tweets from people trying to slag off this sketch that said shit like “guess I’m homophobic now” or “I’m glad conversion therapy camps exist”. Maybe it’s just because I’m the ripe old age of 24, but I feel a bit of a disconnect with how cavalier some of these younger raised on internet LGBTQ+ kids can be with saying stuff like that. I get using stereotypes against you for laughs as an in-joke—like this sketch they all hated does—but when you’re making conversion therapy jokes to criticize someone who legit went to a conversion therapy camp you can go take your Euphoria profile pictures and hyperpop topsters and go fuck off.
— Carson: Oh I definitely heard “Holiday” in this. That melody is a straight rip. I’ll take Anthony’s word on the Charli XCX part.
—This sketch really speaks to the benefit of representation. While I like it well enough, the element of lived experience or firsthand perspective really adds depth and nuance to the piece that wouldn’t have been available in basically any season before this. I think there have been previously sturdy pieces that have been marred by the fact that the performers do not reflect that insider’s perspective. I’ve often thought about the tricky balancing act of corporate entities co-opting pride (or as Anthony says: “rainbow capitalism”), but those observations sound crass from an outsider’s perspective. Think the “Girl With No Gaydar,” which is excellent on paper, but runs a bit cringey with all the straight performers swishing around. Or how the gay material from Kids In The Hall (even really wild swings like “Running F****t”) holds up far better than anything from, say, Mr. Show, thanks to Scott Thompson’s singular and uniquely confrontational perspective. For as great as Mr. Show was, a lot of their gay material had a mean-spirited tone (there was always just something about David Cross that felt a mite too Gen-X edgy, wasn’t there?). Anyway, this is all to say, this is a great example of why widening SNL’s cast demographics works in its favor. I may not agree with my one friend who found it offensive that Beck Bennett did a Russian accent for his Putin impression, but a piece like this really highlights how a diverse cast actually expands comedic and satirical potential.
— Matt: A nice, similarly fleshed-out and wonderfully queer companion piece to “It Gets Better” from earlier this season. As Anthony said earlier, I love that we’re at a point with SNL in terms of diversity where we can get a sketch like this which plays, specifically, for queer audiences, everyone else be damned; for as rocky as the past few seasons have been, I think that’s one of the greatest current highlights of this specific moment in the show’s history. In terms of the sketch itself, I think it’s one of the stronger musical sketches in some time, thanks to how sharply-honed its perspective is, and I love the specificity of its observations; my favorite bits are about how so many straight women dress in queer-adjacent ways, and the argument over Chik-fil-A.
STARS: ****

CELTIC WOMAN (Matt)
Celtic Woman is a crowd-pleasing mostly-Irish musical extravaganza

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— Matt: Hooray, a sketch built off of a reference that I don’t understand, my favorite! Apparently Celtic Woman is a real-life Irish folk ensemble whose program was frequently aired on PBS, and who tour around the US doing Irish things, context which was generally lost on me when it aired. With that being said… we’ll see how the sketch fares for me now.
— Already in the second cutaway, Cecily, Kate, and Aidy are breaking through their performance, something that would usually annoy me… but there’s been enough goodwill built up tonight that it feels fairly charming. It also helps that they’re not all that responsible right now for any of the comedic heavy-lifting.
— Steve Higgins’ voiceover is providing almost all of this sketch’s laughs, but all of his writing is absolutely perfect: “Witness Irish culture the way it was meant to be enjoyed: in Ohio.”
— A funny bit with the Celtic Woman briefly performing a very Celtic version of “Sweet Home Alabama” because it’s just the sorta song the audience would want to hear.
— Ah, Lauren makes her final sketch appearance in a rather thankless role, giving a testimonial for Celtic Woman. It’s sad to see her go; she was dealt an absolutely terrible hand this season, and I feel like it would’ve only been fair for the show to offer her another season to try to make more of an impression. She was never bad, but she was also just never given any opportunities to prove her worth or meaningfully participate in the show, and I blame SNL for that—with its horribly bloated cast of veterans that refuse to leave—far more than I blame her for being unable to infiltrate it. Alas, as usual, she is decent here, and does as much as the show allows her to do (very little).
— A great brief cutaway of Beck and Kyle hamming it up like a couple of absolute goons banging the shit out of Irish drums. Chloe is also a lot of fun as an erratic, running violinist. These are references that I’m sure I could have more room to understand, but they’re fun enough as is.
— “Take your grandma and watch the popular girls from your high school get absolutely railed by the idea of Ireland.” I see you, Anna Drezen.
— This is a pretty slight and messy sketch overall, but it’s pretty fun for what it is, and the fact that so much of the humor comes more from the details than the performances makes it fairly fail-proof. I’ll be perhaps a bit generous with how I’m ranking it because this episode’s put me in a good mood.
— Anthony: Another in this series of sorta grab-bag Drezen-penned sketches starring one or more of these ladies, but enough of the one-liners hit and it gets in and out quick enough with its little drop of silliness that it definitely doesn’t detract from the episode.
— Nice to see Higgins kill it again on the voiceover. He can actually make those Drezen lines pop more than a lot of performers on the show can.
— Carson: Spoiler alert: this is a good episode. But even the good episodes have some weak links. But a weak link does not need to crater an episode. The best weak links kind of merrily float by on good cheer, high energy and base level or worthwhile chuckles. There’s a vague familiarity to Celtic Women, even if the exact reference is lost on you as it was and is with me. But we’ve all been to our local community’s Heritage Days or Cultural Days festival where we’ve watched some sort of traditional Celtic/Ukrainian/Polish/Highland dance routine, so there’s a general vibe that’s easy to connect to. 
STARS: ***

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Montero”

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— Anthony: As I said earlier, this feels like a pretty significant performance. I can’t think of a time the show’s ever had such a flamboyantly gay musical guest before. They’ve had gay guests, sure. And loud, enthusiastic, gender bending performers before, yes. Heck, Elton John’s performed on the show, and I don’t just mean in the form of Horatio. But this is an out gay man coming on to sing a song explictly about gay sex, oiled up, in a cut off shirt, in leather pants, grinding up against a bunch of half naked dudes. That feels new.
— Blue: I remember thinking when Lil Nas X first captured the nation’s attention with “Old Time Road” that he was prime One Hit Wonder material. A year later, and here he is on SNL proving me wrong. 
— Beautiful staging right from the start, with Lil Nas X silhouetted in front of a backdrop of purple clouds. I also love his outfit.
— I’m enjoying the dancers’ choreography as Lil Nas X descends from the elevated section of the stage.
— The pre-recorded track that Lil Nas X is presumably doubling is coming close to overpowering his live vocals.
— Now Lil Nas X has joined in on the choreography, and he’s doing a great job! This is very fun to watch.
— Big reaction from the crowd as one of the dancers licks Lil Nas X’s neck.
— I love how unapologetically homoerotic this performance is, and how it’s clearly not done for shock value, but rather as a celebration. Like Anthony said above, this feels very new and significant.
— It’s hard to tell on the second chorus if Lil Nas X is singing at all. He did skip a line when the mic wasn’t near his mouth, but even now that he’s holding the mic up, his vocals are getting lost in the mix. Perfectly understandable due to the choreography, though.
— Impressive moment where the dancers lift Lil Nas X in the air
— The pre-recorded vocals are becoming even more obvious on the bridge, with Lil Nas X only bothering to double one line.
— This pole-dancing segment is off to an epic start, with dollar bills flying through the air… until Lil Nas X suffers a wardrobe malfunction almost immediately. It’s hilarious to pinpoint the exact moment it happens; he looks down with an “oh shit!” expression, and then covers his crotch and gives the camera a sheepish glance. He showed a clip from dress of how the performance was supposed to go on Fallon the next day.
— Great confident singing from Lil Nas X on the last chorus.
— Love the closing shot, where Lil Nas X is perfectly centered in front of the screen projection so that it looks like he’s wearing angel wings.
STARS: *****

WEEKEND UPDATE (Matt)
for Mental Health Awareness Month, PED addresses return-to-society fears

Jeanine Pirro (CES) sings “My Way” & submerges herself in red wine

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— Matt: Che, regarding Andrew Giuliani: “I didn’t know you could get brain damage when your father drinks during a pregnancy.”
— It’s always a bit difficult to talk about topical jokes from old Updates, but as someone who has watched a looooot of Weekend Update from the early years of SNL, I can safely say that Colin and Michael’s Updates tend to hold up the best for me by a considerable margin. There’s a reason, in these rocky seasons, I’ve always considered them the reliable anchor of the show: even the most iffy installments rarely disappoint. I’m still getting some good laughs out of their material in spite of the distance of watching it nearly a year later.
— Oh wow, and we’re already moving onto the sillier individual jokes before the first guest correspondent. That’s definitely a plus.
— Now it’s Pete’s turn to deliver a correspondent piece that made me think he would be leaving the show. Oopsie!
— A solid self-burn from Pete (very new for him, I know) about how even when masked, people recognize him from his eyes because he looks like he “both just woke up and hasn’t slept in days.”
— “AIDS is a lot like SNL: it’s still here, it’s just no one’s gotten excited about it since the ‘90s.”
— Pete ends his feature by sweetly mentioning how much of an honor it was to grow up in front of an audience. I don’t know how much I agree with that sentiment, as the extent of his oversaturation in pop culture and tabloids would hit a fevered pitch next season, but since things came crashing down for him a few seasons ago, I’ve respected how much he seems like he tries to exist outside of that (even if it doesn’t stop him from finding even more baffling celebrities to hook up with). Either way, this is a fairly above-average segment from him, and maybe it would be more impactful if he didn’t follow it up with a segment in the next season premiere where he insists that he doesn’t know why he’s still on SNL either.
— Yay, baby’s first Joke Swap coverage! I specifically asked to cover the entirety of Update in large part just because I wanted to write about the Joke Swap, so this’ll be fun.
— So far, the jokes are pretty basic jabs at Colin being racist or Michael being bad at sex, but they’re still giving me laughs. You gotta warm up to the good shit.
— The run of jokes about the upcoming Superman movie where Superman is Black are fantastic; I love Colin’s joke about how his Kryptonite is “an honest day’s work.”
— Another thing I love is that we’ve hit the point where Colin has started making Michael’s jokes be less jokes and more forcing him to profess support for some terrible person or group. Last Joke Swap, with him telling Epstein to “Rest in power” is probably the peak, but having him honor police officers who used excessive force on a homeless Black man by saying that “Blue lives matter even more” is certainly nothing to sleep on, either.
— Hahaha, and now Michael has completely derailed the ostensive setup of an unrelated joke by having Colin affirm that Woody Allen did nothing wrong!
— And now Colin is doing ANOTHER Superman joke! God, I remember actually crying when I saw this live and it’s still murdering me right now.
— You’d think that would be the perfect crescendo to this Update, but boy oh boy, there’s just one more treat around the corner…
— Cecily’s Jeanine Pirro, here to close out the third season in a row! Within the first 30 seconds she’s already sloshing Colin with her wine glass so we’re clearly building to something special.
— And now, here it is: Cecily breaking out into a performance of “My Way” and jumping into a giant tank of red wine. Fuckin’ grade-A shit, only to be surpassed by Cecily launching a torrent of red wine perfectly into Colin’s face without even looking back at him. If Cecily left after this season, this would be one of the most perfect swan songs a cast member has ever gotten, and the fact that she didn’t leave afterwards was something that had me worried about how well it would play for me with that hindsight… but god, it’s impossible not to love this as a cathartic, bombastic, and beautifully silly way to bring the past season of Weekend Updates to a close. More than anything else, now I just wonder how Cecily could possibly top this when she does her real farewell piece. I suppose we’ll see! (NOTE: We wrote these ages ago. I’ll have thoughts on her proper farewell eventually!)
— I’ve had to contemplate the grade I would give this Update. It’s certainly not perfect all the way through, with the nice but inoffensive Pete feature being a glaring weak point, but I think that its weakness is largely in the fact that both Joke Swap and Jeanine Pirro are so fucking good. And if I were to say that this Update, before those two parts, was at a 3.5, that the Joke Swap bumps it up half a star, and that Jeanine warrants a full bonus star… then baby, we’ve got a sexy, five-star Update. Anthony and Carson can fight me, but I have the power and I’m fucking using it. Sorry, boys!
— Anthony: Wowee Batman, a full five! While I can’t quite go that high, this is the good stuff for sure. Joke swap is one of the most fun traditions of any Update era, and this is possibly the best installment yet, so that’s a huge plus, and in general Jost and Che seem to have more energy tonight than they did a lot of nights this season. To be honest, if both these performers left after this (Pete and Cecily, though Jost & Che can certainly take notes as well…), you could maybe talk me into that full fiveroo. As is, it’s hard to look past that Pete’s piece is, as Matt pointed out, fine but really not up to much. And as for Cecily…I mean she kills it, but this was so clearly intended as a send off. And now that it isn’t one, that just makes it, what…an ode to Jeanine Pirro? It just adds an unfortunate weird taste to her whole bit here, which is unfortunate because it’s otherwise easily my favorite thing from Cecily this season.
— Carson: Hmm, yeah. My philosophy has always been “If Norm’s Updates didn’t get *****, no one gets *****.” As much as I appreciate the Jost and Che pair—easy No. 3 on my all-time Update list, possibly No. 2 by the end of their never-ending tenure—there’s always been a little bit too much Seth Meyers in the DNA of the duo. Like, watch the first run of jokes, before Che and Jost really explore their dynamic—it’s just the breezy, low-stakes patter of the Meyers era. When the jokes are great, they’re spectacular, but a smooth delivery and a hot crowd will turn a lot of fours into nines. These guys are great when they really let loose, but they still have a sort of professional efficiency that cruises along in third gear. That is until the joke swap which is, as always, worth the price of admission alone.
—The other element has been touched on, but the air of finality that carried this segment during the live airing is deflated now that we know that moments that feel like send-offs are just feints. After another re-heated serving of “Pete Davidson talks about himself and his celebrity” we get a sort-of modest acknowledgment about him “growing up” in front of the audience. It’s low-key enough that it’s not, like, obsequious, but knowing where things are headed with Pete in the coming season, I don’t know if Pete’s maturity journey is quite out of its tumultuous stage.
— Cecily’s piece is more obviously excellent because Cecily, for all her flaws (basically her loyalty to James Anderson), is SNL’s most powerful performer. So she nails her piece, perhaps too much! Watching it now, I can see how it does not need to be perceived as a big climactic send-off, but then again, remembering the feelings of the moments, it seems that the extra oomph in Cecily’s performance is due to the extra emotional heft behind it. It was all just a classic case of audience manipulation though. We were duped! Matt’s still in their feelings though, and they get final say on this one, so…
STARS: *****

IN MEMORIAM
a photo of Charles Grodin marks his passing

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— Matt: Weekend Update ends with a bumper in tribute of the recently-deceased Charles Grodin, who infamously hosted in Season 3 under the guise of not having attended dress rehearsal and futzing through every sketch he appeared in. It’s an episode so legendary that it still perpetuates myths that he was “banned” from the show, and having since seen that incredible episode, I’m glad that SNL—as spotty and weirdly selective as it can be with who it chooses to memorialize—gave him a well-deserved nod.

ENID & ASTRID’S BRAWR BARN (Matt)
Enid (AIB) & Astrid’s (host) Brawr Barn supports large-breasted women

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— Matt: You gotta appreciate Anya’s gameness and versatility across this episode, because I would not have bet on her being part of a two-hander with Aidy doing a thick New York accent and looking completely at-ease. 
— Like “Celtic Woman,” this is pretty much just another one-liner-athon, but it’s working better. Not only is Aidy more locked-in (she’s pretty underrated at this sort of stuff whenever she’s severed from Kate), but the writing feels stronger and the prop comedy with the various terrifying “brawrs” is selling everything harder.
— A pretty wild bit with Aidy vigorously squeezing and smacking Heidi’s breasts. You can tell Heidi’s doing her darndest not to break, and I feel like we rarely see her come this close.
— Anya: “Nobody has ever had a sexual feeling in this store.” Aidy: “This is a medical experience. We are one step away from a hospital.”
— It’s also nice to see Beck get this sort of meathead role one more time as Aidy’s husband since it’s the sort of role that he was predestined to play. Also a really funny, subtle touch of him smoking a cigar under his welder’s mask.
— Aidy: “I know Victoria’s secret, and it’s that she’s too intimidated to help me!”
— Your mileage may vary with these sorts of sketches, and I feel I tend to be more generous to them than most, but this feels like one of the finer examples to me, carried by committed performances from Aidy and Anya.
— Anthony: This and Celtic Woman are the definite dips of this episode, which just speaks to how consistent this episode is overall because neither are particularly poor sketches. Both have their solid one-liners and fun moments of physicality (Chloe doing her crazy violin dance in that piece, Aidy groping Heidi like a maniac here) and neither—and this is real important—overstay their welcome.
— Beck gets one of his many big dumb guy roles of the night here. Nice to see him going out doing what he does best.
— Carson: A pretty stock, low-stakes piece for SNL, but it’s written and performed to the absolute peak of its potential, another testament to the strength of this episode. Aidy, in particular, gives an assured, giddy performance, bringing an absolute hammer to a sketch that she could have sleepwalked through. The details in the writing (“You’re a 28Q…”) are keen-eyed and make a great marriage for the performers. Undoubtedly, this is a throwaway, but this is about as good as SNL gets in these kinds of pieces.
STARS: ***½

NYU GUEST PANEL (Anthony)
coeds’ (AIB) & (host) questions to TV cast are softball or insensitive

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— Anthony: So after some digging I found that several of the cast members of this sketch, including Pete and Punkie, as well as the writers of this sketch, Anna Drezen and Celeste Yim, did a zoom panel for a college a bit before this episode that went down pretty similarly, with Pete being asked breezy questions by star-struck fans and the lesser known minority cast members and writers only being called upon for questions about their “struggles”. So a pretty clear and solid inspiration for a sketch there.
— This sketch works great even without that backstory, as anyone who’s watched dumb press junkets like this can notice this pattern.
— I also found out Melissa was at that original panel. She would have slotted into this sketch pretty perfectly, but I guess I should never count out the show finding new ways to shut out poor Melissa. 
— Was the audience instructed to applaud for Pete? I feel like either answer I get on that will disappoint me. 
— “As a black woman, could you please explain race?” Perfect line to get us into this. Two dumb questions to Pete, that whopper of a question to Ego and we’re off to the races.
— I can’t keep quoting them but every question the non Pete cast members get asked is just chef’s kiss.
— Anya continues to be great here. I love her menacing “we’ll get to you” when Heidi tries to inject and answer one of Pete’s fun questions. There’s an iciness to the way she interacts with all the non-Pete cast members that really sells this, I’d say even more than Aidy, and makes the switch when she gets back to Pete even more effective (also like the affectation she puts on when talking to Pete where it seems like she’s trying to solve a math problem). 
— I like how Pete’s character is blissfully unaware of how probing and uncomfortable his co-stars’ questions are.
— A nice nod to parting writers Sudi Green and Fran Gillespie with 2 questions being submitted by ‘Fran G’ and ‘Sudi G’. We also get a nod to director Hannah Levy with a question from “Hannah L”.
— Aidy messes up the punchline of the bit where she interrupts Punkie by hesitating and then tripping over her words. Feels like a cue card issue.
— The questions eventually hilariously devolve into pure babble (“You’re a gay homo, yah?”).
— Great ending with the interviewers giving out the panelists’ personal cell phone numbers to the chat.
— Another strong ensemble piece tonight. This kept just the right energy for this type of piece, a rapid fire stream of one-liners built around a solid satirical premise that once again tonight finds the show mining humor from a perspective it’s often overlooked. 
— Apparently they tried this again in the Billie Eilish episode, but wisely chose to cut it. This sketch already perfectly explores this premise, there’s no need to return to this ground .(While she’s a fun and competent host, I also don’t think Billie would have managed the tone switches I talked about with Anya as masterfully, which is a big part of what sells this sketch). 
— Carson: My favorite thing about this site is when someone argues in favor of a sketch deserving classic status—especially sketches that maybe didn’t register as classics to me on the first go-round. Not because they’re not great, but, y’know, not everything hits with its full gravity in the moment. This season has a few of those (Matt’s review of “The Blitz” from the Bill Burr episode, for one) and I feel like I may have done that once or twice too. This is a good example of that. It’s also another good example of how diversity is a weapon that enhances satirical potential instead of muddies it. SNL frequently veers into a sort of pandering neoliberal mush, but as the cast grows in its diversity, it is able to approach the realm of diversity with more teeth (in a way, I’m reminded of “Dyke & Fats”—a brilliant piece that could not have been effectively approached without the very specific people performing the scene). Here, we’re able to explore the problems associated with “identity comedy” (a term I’m just now making up) where visible minorities are not seen as being anything beyond those minority identities. I mean, it’s not the entire thrust of this scene, but there’s a knowing and lived-in quality to the indignities that Ego, Bowen and Punkie’s characters (or “characters”) have to endure in the wake of their celebrity castmate. I know everyone is playing a role here, but you get a sense that this is barely an exaggeration of the real thing. Pete, for his part, plays the foil well. And as we’ve seen over the course of Season 46, Pete achieving the bare minimum level of proficiency is cause for huge celebration among many online fans. But kudos, nonetheless.  
— Matt: Anthony hit this perfectly in his review, so I don’t have a ton to add. If the earlier “Making Man” sketch is an example of a piece whose strength comes from the fact it could play in any era, this is a sketch whose strength is that it could only exist in this era, with these writers and this cast. This is such a perfect idea for this writer’s room’s talent at crafting perfect one-liners and the ensemble is wonderful, with everyone submitting incredible work, particularly Aidy and Pete (two performers I’m usually fairly hard on). I mean this is especially, absolutely perfect use of Pete, and along with his Update feature, this would’ve been a great way to cap off both his tenure and his best season as a cast member… if only he had actually departed, rather than continuing on the show with both feet already out the door.
— “How has being gay and Chinese prevented you from being happy?” Line of the episode.
STARS: ***** 

MUSICAL PERFORMANCE
musical guest performs “Sun Goes Down”

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— Blue: Interesting choice to have a closeup of Lil Nas X’s face on the screen behind him for the entire performance. I can’t imagine that Studio 8H is a big enough venue to need that kind of visual.
— This isn’t exactly a ballad, but it still fills the “upbeat song + ballad” format well enough.
— As soon as Lil Nas X starts singing, it’s obvious that either his vocals are not 100% live, or the engineer has put a lot of effects on them.
— Lil Nas X’s lower register is quite pleasant to listen to.
— I’m feeling a bit emotional hearing these personal lyrics. Especially “I’mma make my fans so proud of me.” Aw… 
— I suspect that final bit of wordless singing (“ahhh”) was lip-synced, or at least the vocal effect was so prominent it sounded like it was lip-synced.
— I usually get annoyed when singers play air guitar along to their own song, but I’m finding it very endearing coming from Lil Nas X.
— Very touching to hear Lil Nas X tell the audience that he loves them all at the conclusion of the song.
STARS: ***

AMC THEATRES (Anthony)
for AMC Theatres, Vin Diesel (BEB) rhapsodizes about going to the mooovies

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— Anthony: And so we say goodbye to Beck Bennett. Beck had a quick rise at the show, slowly but surely taking the glue guy spot from Taran (that he got to have for like, a season and a half) and holding it down since (with Mikey in tow as Glue #2). While Beck’s never been my favorite on the show, he’s always been a reliable, committed performer. I do think it says something that even amongst the “things must never change” stans, Beck’s departure went mostly unremarked upon. Still, he certainly had his moments, as tonight showed. Going out the door, the guy gave us two of my favorite things he’s ever done on the show.
— I talked in the Kaluuya review about sketches I could show non-fans, and my God if this isn’t the sketch from Season 46 that’s had the strongest success rate. People I’ve shown this to just love this thing, and I have certain friends I still say “moooveees” within casual conversation. I think it’s a testament to Vin Diesel’s lovably ridiculous dumb guy public persona as much as it Beck’s strong work here.
— Bit of a full circle moment here for Beck, as Vin Diesel was one of his first notable roles all the way back in his third episode.
— The writing on this is kind of nothing at times, but we’re not here for the writing. We’re here for Beck to grovel “mooooveees”.
— “Have you ever seen a moovee? It’s amazing!”
— Great bit with Kenan as a janitor who comes in to clean, notices Diesel rambling, and silently backs away.
— This does start to drag a bit by the end, and the ending is your typical SNL handwave. In concept and execution it’s probably closer to a 4, but the rating system is already screwy as is with 6 reviewers, and much like the maskless audience, we’re just feeling ourselves at this point. At the end of a frankly drab and dreary season (and an even worse year surrounding it) this hits. In what’s sure to be the most generous rating I’ll ever give on the site, I award Vinny a full Fast Five.
— Carson: A nice goodbye moment of sorts for Beck. As a true stalwart, Beck ends his tenure with some proper scene work as opposed to, you know, that Kristen Wiig boondoggle. I much prefer it this way. Granted, this isn’t exactly the greatest sketch in the world, but it’s a good example of Beck’s ability to push his confident macho idiot persona to its giddy extreme. The writing here is observant and reasonably sharp, but it takes Beck’s beefy goofiness (and goofy beefiness) to really sell it. Unlike Anthony, I see this as a slightly modest final sketch, but it certainly encompasses Beck’s comedic spirit to a tee.
— Matt: This is the perfect swan song to Beck, ceded the 10-to-1 spot to do the sort of effortlessly sublime stupidity that he was always best at, and which—in SNL’s insistence that he maintain a glue position—we didn’t get to see nearly as much as we should have. This is the sort of sketch that only he could really sell, partially because it’s the sort of sketch that he’d be the only one to pitch, and my god does he kill it here. Every single word that he fights his way through as Vin Diesel is gold, and I’m glad that he could leave the show on the sort of high that so many of the other cast members surrounding him could’ve afforded to as well.
STARS: ***** 

GOODNIGHTS

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CUT FOR TIME: STAR QUALITY (Matt)
(AIB) & (KAM) serenade doll, (BOY) & (host) introduce new music genre on (KET)’s talent-search program

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— Matt: Hahahaha, yeah, fuck this shit.
— I don’t want to point fingers at the specific writer who made this sort of sketch commonplace, especially because said writer by this point has departed from the show, but that just makes this sketch, with all of the cliches that it mercilessly checks off—Kenan in an ungodly hammy performance speaking garbly garbage that’s ostensibly designed to sound funny (“the hyman of the entertainment industry”; “vaginacologist”), stupid character names, Southern accents, and lul so random details delivered through club music—all the more watery, as if the torch of said writer deserved to be preserved like an eternal flame rather than stamped out like a flaming bag of dog poop.
— The trellis used as a backdrop element in this sketch can be seen stored on the “Making Man” set during the cold open. Is that fun information?
— At least Bowen gets to wear hella mesh here. Happy for him.
— Anthony: Weird structure to this. Figured we’d either get a series of contestants or just focus on one weird pair, but instead it’s one long bit with Kate & Aidy followed by another long bit with Bowen and Anya. Oh yea, and neither are funny in the slightest.
— They shoulda called this one Deep House Don’t, amirite? Don’t worry folks, we’re almost done here. 
— Carson: What I liked: The hymen line (sorry) and Bowen’s “And me? I’m on the same level as her.” What I didn’t like: All the cliches of modern SNL (as mentioned above but also a “Kenan Reacts” for good measure) sloppily adorning a sketch with no root structure. Just a few vaguely connected ideas (music!) mashed together in a Frankenstein monster of inscrutable and aimless sketch comedy. Like, imagine going for an Anderlette vibe and failing at that. 
STARS: *

CUT FOR TIME: BACKSTAGE PITCH (Anthony)
(KAM), (BEB), (EGN), & (AIB) pitch Queen’s Gambit spoofs to (host)

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— Anthony: “Sketch about not being able to come up with a good sketch” is a pretty “sketch you’d see in a Sketch 101 class” concept, but it’s a decent jumping off point for a series of quick jokes, so let’s see how the hit rate on this turns out.
— It says quite a bit about Kate’s later seasons at the show that you could totally convince me Queen’s (Borough) Gambit was an actual sketch idea she pitched. I did enjoy her almost profound delivery of “I am not” when Anya asks if she’s actually from Queens.
— I wonder if they would have made the graphic of the talking chess piece in the Queer Eye parody less horryifying if this made it to air.
— Ego’s bit, pitching a chess theme Hustlers parody called “Chustlers”, isn’t up to much, but I do like seeing the show have enough confidence in her to place her along Kate, Beck and Aidy here. It feels like, had this been done in the previous season’s finale, this role would have gone to Cecily or Kyle (I mean he’d rock the fur coat, admittedly). It may not have been intentional, but it’s a nice capper for Ego’s season, one that saw her really rise through the ranks of the show and walk away the MVP of the year. 
— “Sometimes, when a host is really known for one thing-” I will not stand for this The Witch erasure. (If we’re pretending Split and Glass don’t exist on the other hand…eh, okay.)
— Another self-winking nod from the show that having a tech billionaire host may not have been the greatest move, with Kate nearly breaking in tears after finding out Elon Musk hosting wasn’t just a dream she had. I’m not too into the “broken down Kate” thing they were doing this season, but it’s a solid moment. 
— This is just collapsing into word salad at this point, which I know is the point but it just leaves the thing feeling kind of empty. This feels a bit like SNL trying to ape the past success of the random humor of The Lonely Island shorts, as well as a precursor to the more successful fast paced Tik Tok style Please Don’t Destroy videos we’ll get next season (more on those when I return with my next review…), but unfortunately for now it feels stuck in between those and ends up just feeling like a lot of fast paced oh-so-random bits without much really tying them together. There’s some minor fun to be had (I mean, “Dairy Queen’s Damn Bitch”), but this is definitely more bubblegum than steak (I can still only compare sketch to food). 
— Carson: I was mostly down with the premise here and was kind of hopeful it would be one of those quick hit pieces with lots of jump cuts, but I think we only got that in part. Instead, this felt like it really got diverted. Some ways were fun (Aidy talking about getting a whale), but some, like the COVID and Elon Musk stuff, felt redundant to the Cold Open. Now granted, this was a dress rehearsal pre-tape, so maybe the producers felt this piece didn’t hold together (it doesn’t) but could still be salvaged for parts. Which, frankly, I think was the right choice.
— I also, just…*sigh*…I don’t think I can handle the Kate persona. I think she’s still a fine sketch performer, I guess, but when Kate is tasked with playing herself, all of her tics come out in a wild flurry and I just can’t handle it. Am I alone in this?
— Matt: This isn’t a super great sketch, and I think it’s a fair cut, especially in favor of the other pretapes that made this episode. I’m a bit more generous to it than Anthony and Carson, though; while the premise is basic, I always like seeing these seasons do more meta sketches that play around with the cast as themselves (which is in short supply these days), as well as the show spoofing its track record of obligatory, host-specific parody sketches. My favorite parts were less the cutaways and more the little exchanges that take place in Anya’s dressing room: Aidy talking about “shooting” the whale they bought for “Free Queenie” and Kate’s breakdown over Elon Musk hosting are very good little moments that play off of the identity of both of them as performers well. Seeing Ego get to join in the pile-up as well is a nice affirmation of the spot she’s carved out at the show. 
STARS: **½ 

IMMEDIATE POST-SHOW THOUGHTS
— Anthony: Hot diggity dang, was that a strong one. I think this is the first review since we took over from Stooge where every single segment in the live show got a positive grade. As with many of us, I was pretty disappointed when over the summer only one of the super senior cast members chose to leave, and that does undeniably taint the episode a bit, though I think you only really feel it for a couple of lines in the open and with Cecily’s piece. Overall, this was still one of the best episodes of this whole era: the writing, while not particularly daring or inventive, was, to use this phrase again, just a whole lot tighter than we generally get; a new host came in and crushed, and a well-liked cast member got to leave on top with two of his funniest pieces. There really isn’t much more you could ask for from a finale.
— Carson: An undeniably strong episode and I felt it at the time too. From the refreshing cold open and monologue to a reasonably triumphant Weekend Update, this episode felt brisk and invigorating. While I only had one sketch slated for five stars going into the review (Picture With Dad), I was effectively convinced on one other (NYU Guest Panel). As for the other two to receive the full grade? They’re within reasonable shouting distance of greatness for me to not be too rattled, though I think a high end episode like this one will make merely decent pieces feel so much more. But then again, even the merely decent pieces (Brawr Barn, Celtic Women) had a little more zip going for them than usual. Honestly, after such an understandably difficult season where the show had to sort of re-invent itself through COVID and into the post-Trump era, it was nice to see them wrap the season with a complete victory lap. Felt well-earned. Would have been a great farewell episode for so many people. Only Beck got the memo.   
— Matt: I remembered this episode being truly delightful when it aired, but I was worried that it wouldn’t hold up nearly as much when I had to cover it… so it was, truly, a delightful surprise that it ended up being even better than I recalled! It definitely hurts a bit to account for the fact that it would’ve been a perfect farewell episode for Cecily, Aidy, Pete, and Beck—only one of whom took the opportunity—but hey, quality is quality. Following the past season of highs and Elon Musks, this episode is a massive, glorious victory lap, and undoubtedly one of the greatest season finales the show has ever had. And again, out of this season?? It’s madness, but the numbers don’t lie. I’ll break out the big g-word: absolutely gangbusters.

OUR PERSONAL CHOICE OF “BEST OF” MOMENTS FOR THIS EPISODE, REPRESENTED WITH SCREENCAPS

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RATED SEGMENTS FROM BEST TO WORST
Picture With Dad
NYU Guest Panel
Weekend Update
AMC Theatres
Making Man
What I Remember About Last Year
It’s Pride Again
Hollywood Squares
Enid & Astrid’s Brawr Barn
Monologue
Celtic Woman
(CFT: Backstage Pitch)
(CFT: Star Quality)

COMING SOON!
The Best Of Beck Bennett!